This was my reaction as well. The skip-level should not be the first person to let them know they're perceived as under-performing. OP: Schedule a 1 on 1 with your direct manager and have a conversation about all of this.

My skip-level at my first MAAAM job used to snipe at me when I was a new hire. He told me to my face he "would not have chosen me" and "didn't know how I got in." It made me so angry it was all I could do to hold my tongue until I got the fuck out of his office. But I went on to become very successful there, and he eventually had no choice politically but to support me. He got managed out a couple of years later.

> He told me to my face he "would not have chosen me" and "didn't know how I got in."

Holy shit. Glad that this person got managed out... eventually.

Can be motivitating words for some people. Coaches will say stuff like this to a talented athlete who is underachieving, if they think it will light a fire.

A good manager would not say stuff like that unless he really felt the person would take it the right way. A bad manager will say stuff like that to stroke his own ego.

I don't think tech managers should be taking management lessons from Full Metal Jacket in any case. But I sat at a lunch table with this guy every day for 3 years, and I know he was not trying to motivate me. He was trying to keep me in my place.

Coaches are not involved in hierarchical relationship where they could fire you or make your life hell. Neither they are involved in the decision of how much you should earn or if you should be promoted or not.

So those are absolutely different sorts of relationships. The coach is not your superior so it changes everything about what they could say to you and the consequences it could have on you.

So no, a good manager should never say stuff like that. It's the sort of words that can be the involuntary sparkle which could ignite depression or even suicide. And for what ? A better performance at writing crud programs ? No. Professional things are not important enough to say any of this.

I would also add that sports can be highly emotional games, and getting a player angry or passionate (assuming they direct this at the other team) can actually be productive. This isn't the case with work that requires higher level of cognition, and not smashing someone against the wall to get a puck from them hah. I wouldn't want my subordinates to be angry at me or the rest of the organization for any reason.

I know how that "I wouldn't have hired you" thing feels. I didn't go to college for software dev, but am now working at my second job. When I got hired at the first, eventually a conversation came up that was supposed to be light-hearted with all the employees at a lunch (small startup), and the CEO (who is the one who had interviewed me) said "when you got to work coding, you seemed very experienced. But had I known you were only __ years old, I wouldn't have hired you."

Not sure if it was meant to be a good job, or a "you're lucky."

sorry, not aware of that acronym, is that a new acronym for FAANG? I could see facebook turning into meta, google to alphabet... can't see netflix in there? is the other M microsoft?

Or is it something else?

I assume it's: Microsoft Apple Amazon Alphabet Meta, or some structure-preserving permutation thereof.

I immediately hate it.

Completely agree. As a general rule if a junior developer does something “wrong”, unless it purposefully malicious, it’s on the manager.

OP, I’d say keep this situation in the back of your mind and reevaluate in a few months. If it happens again, start the job search.

Agreed. OP should schedule a meeting with the manager to find out how they're doing, if expectations are being met, etc. It's entirely possible that things are just fine, but the boss has the wrong idea about this particular employee.

I think it's a sign of bad company management, but it's by no means a dealbreaker. i.e., not something to quit over.

Before that, OP should get a clear set of expectations from the manager. If a manager doesn't express clear expectations and the metrics used to measure outcomes, then they can't expect them to be met.

Absolutely do schedule a meeting with your manager. Ask for actionable advice, ask for goals between now and review time or this will cost you.

Anytime your skip-level steps in to guide your work directly, it’s either a failure of your manager or the skip-level themself.

Well, depends on the specifics: I was embedded in an operational unit so neither my manager or their boss were techies. It was often necessary for urgent issues for the upper boss to talk/meet with me directly to hash something out and translate from operational needs to technical capabilities and logic.

But both of them always filled each other in, and it was never about any performance issues on my part.

I took from the TP that the direct manager was meant to attend the meeting but couldn't for reasons. Obviously the meeting should have been rescheduled.

I also got the impression that the manager's boss was venting... presumably they were feeling some pressure from elsewhere to deliver the project. Not a great sign that they took it out on the junior, but this would normally be the job of the middle manager to deflect / explain / shield the junior from.

To the OP: try to not take it personal, the manager's boss was almost certainly venting their own frustrations and "taking it out" on you. Very unprofessional but it happens. It's very unlikely to be a real reflection on your performance. Try to take it as a growth experience to build a bit of "thick skin". You shouldn't have to but it helps to have it (especially if in future years you become the middle manager who has to absorb the venting). Hopefully your direct manager will give you more useful feedback on your performance and perhaps explain the boss's frustrations.

The plan was that she would be present? Maybe the boss' boss just had a plan to whine at her, but only OP showed up.

Right that's a huge failure of the manager in this scenario. If you can't make it, do your best to get the meeting rescheduled. Don't just bail and throw your junior dev to the lion.

I had a VP bail on me in a meeting with the CEO when there was an issue and it was the VP's responsibility. It was sudden and without any explanation: just a no-show. I don't think it was a coincidence.

Yup. I am concerned, because it sounds like a lack of mentoring on a technical and an organizational level. I've made similar mistakes and I dislike it, but my lesson is: a junior should have mentors they can lean upon and draw into meetings for technical and political support. Or lean upon just whenever. It can grow overbearing if the junior doesn't grow wings, but under-mentoring and seeming abandonment inside the org can be much, much worse.

Like, why are they complaining about this on hacker news? They should be venting to their manager (we can see why that fails), or some engineer with some clout they trust. If they don't have these avenues, that can turn sour quickly.

I'm sure the vast majority of the criticism of the project should have just been directed to the manager. Taking too long on a single part can definitely be directed towards a junior dev but there should be some guidance attached to that (check in more often, etc). Anything that doesn't fall under the specific tasks given to the engineers is entirely the manager's job.

This, big time. The other answers seem like victim blaming.

Yeah, this the root cause.